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Friday, November 21, 2014

If “The Economy is Recovering” Why Is There a Surge in Homeless Children?

For the last three elections now, 2010, 2012 and 2015, corporate
media and corporate politicians have ceaselessly assured us that “the
economy” whatever that is, is “back on track”, wherever that is.
Despite what corporate media and politicians tell us, the positive
indicators of soaring stock market valuations, rising real estate prices
and the rigged unemployment figures that don’t count the jailed, the
recently released from jails and prisons, and those who’ve given up on
finding work or those working part time who desperately want full time
hours real life for most real people hasn’t got any better since 2008 or
2009.

Last week an extraordinary and shameful study emerged from the National Center on Family Homelessness confirmed
it by demonstrating that almost 2.5 million children in the US were
homeless at some point during 2013. That’s one child in every thirty, in
what we’re accustomed to thinking of as the richest nation on earth. In
the most recent months for which statistics exist, the rate of
homelessness among children is spiking, increased 8% nationally from
2012 to 2013, and by 10% or more in 13 states and the District of
Columbia. In 2006 one in 50 children were homeless. In 2010 it was one
in 45. Now, in the age of Obama, the 2013 number is 1 in 30.

The causes of homelessness among children are not your comforting
stereotypes of drug use and mental illness. These are “comforting”
because they encourage us to blame the drug-addicted, and pity the
mentally ill, and our comfort keeps us from questioning the capitalist
system which declares that we must have poverty in the midst of plenty,
or wondering why we ourselves are no more than a month or two from
homelessness.

America’s shameful surge in homeless children is caused by the fact
that wages are NOT rising, low income housing is NOT being built, and
the stock of available housing is being demolished or cannibalized by
gentrifying speculators. Speculators can’t make money off stable
neighborhoods, so the poorest have to leave wherever they are to make
room for something else.

In California, the nation’s most populous state 34% of households are
paying more than half their annual income for rent, and while the
state’s minimum wage is $8 an hour, a 2 bedroom apartment at a third of
annual income would require tripling the minimum wage to $25.78 an hour.
The issue then, is poverty.

Millions of children are not suffering because their parents have
suddenly become addicted, or neglectful or lazy or stupid. Their
parents, many of whom are working as hard as they can, are simply not
able to afford a roof over their heads. This is just capitalism. It may
be a scandal, but it’s no surprise.

This happens to be just the way that “the economy” works when it’s “back on track.” It’s time to tear up those tracks.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black
Agenda Report. He lives and works in Marietta GA and can be reached via
this site’s contact page, or at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.

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